MIDI composition
Logic Pro X’s history as a MIDI sequencer stretches all the way back to 1992, when it started life as Notator Logic, so it should come as no surprise that it offers a lot more in the way of MIDI manipulation than the newer, wilfully minimalist Ableton Live.
Although all the essentials are in place – including quantise and groove extraction, audioto-MIDI conversion, multi-clip editing, and a solid array of MIDI plugins – Live’s MIDI facilities appear meagre compared to Logic’s rack of handy Inspector-based MIDI shaping controls, powerful MIDI Environment, multi-faceted MIDI Transform module (enabling humanising, randomising and more), Audio Units MIDI FX, Score Editor and more versatile Piano Roll tools.
For most Live users, however, none of that matters – the MIDI programming paradigm, and the contemporary producer’s technical expectations, have changed a lot since the 90s, and most won’t even be aware of the things that their DAW is ‘missing’. Indeed, Ableton have done a sterling job of keeping this fundamental part of the system free of clutter. Very rarely do we find ourselves wishing for any specific MIDI editing feature in Live that can’t easily be worked around – with the possible exception of an event list, as being able to filter and alter MIDI data numerically would be hugely useful.
On the other hand, Apple are to be equally commended for maintaining the formidable complexity for which Logic’s MIDI architecture has always been known. Defying the popular assumption that their buying of original Logic developer Emagic in 2002 would lead to a dumbing down, the fruity tech Goliath hasn’t removed a single MIDI-related feature – it’s all still there, from the Environment and Transform module to the Dynamics, Gate Time and ‘Q’ settings in the Inspector. In fact, it’s only been added to over the years with a raft of worthy new MIDI features, the most notable being Logic Pro X 10.5’s superb Step Sequencer.
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